The Shuttleworth kitchenmaid meanwhile, who was not hindered at every
turn by a regard for her soul, made her way to Fritzing as she had
been told and inquired of him what she should cook for his dinner. No
man likes to be interrupted in his groanings; and Fritzing, who was
not hungry and was startled by the sudden appearance of a stranger in
his room asking him intimate questions, a person of whose presence in
the cottage he had been unaware, flew at her. "Woman, what have I to
do with you?" he cried, stopping in his walk and confronting her with
surprising fierceness. "Is it seemly to burst in on a man like this?
Have you no decency? No respect for another's privacy? Begone, I
command you--begone! Begone!" And he made the same movements with his
hands that persons do when they shoo away fowls or other animals in
flocks.
This was too much for the Shuttleworth kitchenmaid. The obligations,
she considered, were all on the side of Creeper Cottage, and she
retreated in amazement and anger to the kitchen, put on her hat and
mackintosh, and at once departed, regardless of the rain and the
consequences, through two miles of dripping lanes to Symford Hall.
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